"Unfortunately so much commentary is self-serving or sensationalist. Pete Wargent shines through with his clear, sober & dispassionate analysis of the housing market, which is so valuable. Pete drills into the facts & unlocks the details that others gloss over in their rush to get a headline. On housing Pete is a must read, must follow - he is one of the finest property analysts in Australia" - Stephen Koukoulas, MD of Market Economics, former Senior Economics Adviser to Prime Minister Gillard.

"Pete Wargent is one of Australia's brightest financial minds - a must-follow for articulate, accurate & in-depth analysis." - David Scutt, Business Insider, leading Australian market analyst.

"I've been investing for over 40 years & read nearly every investment book ever written yet I still learned new concepts in his books. Pete Wargent is one of Australia's finest young financial commentators." - Michael Yardney, Australia's leading property expert, Amazon #1 best-selling author.

"The most knowledgeable person on Aussie real estate markets - Pete's work is great, loads of good data and charts, the most comprehensive analyst I follow in Australia. If you follow Australia, follow Pete Wargent" - Jonathan Tepper, Variant Perception, Global Macroeconomic Research, and author of the New York Times bestsellers 'End Game' and 'Code Red'.

"The level of detail in Pete's work is superlative across all of Australia's housing markets" - Grant Williams, co-founder RealVision, author of Things That Make You Go Hmmm...one of the world's most popular & widely-read financial publications.

Wednesday, 7 December 2016

Terms of trade bounce

Current account deficit narrows

Australia's terms of trade lifted by a tidy +4.4 per cent in the third quarter, a welcome rebound which means that year-on-year the terms of trade are now +1.4 per cent higher.

More on that in the morning when the national accounts are released to widespread anticipation of a negative print.

I'm not sure whether anyone cares much about the Balance of Payments figures these days, but if they do, there was good news for them today as the current account deficit narrowed to a seasonally adjusted $11.36 billion.

That's an improvement of some 29 per cent over the quarter and the best result in a couple of years - in fact, there hasn't been a significantly better result in half a decade since the December 2011 quarter.

Meanwhile, while we'll have to wait until tomorrow to confirm result, it looks as though net foreign debt, although it has still been increasing slightly, has problem been trimmed back as a percentage of annual GDP.